The Hacker's Diet
fourmilab.ch
fourmilab.ch
1) You need to be in a calorie deficit. (consuming less calories than you use)
2) Use a calorie calculator to find out roughly what your maintenance daily calorie allowance is. (eg http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm)
3) Eating less calories than this will result in you being in a calorie deficit and losing weight.
4) Every ~3500 calories under maintenance will result in 1 lb weight loss (so eating 500 less calories than maintenance per day will result in 1 lb/week)
4a) Likewise when bulking 500 calories per day above maintenance will mean you put on 1 lb/week (approx).
4b) 250 calories under maintenance per day, 1750 per week and you'll lose 0.5 lbs in that week. (You get the idea..)
5) A slightly higher protein diet will help hold on to muscle mass while cutting this weight.
6) Muscle mass helps loss weight because the more of it you have the more calories your body consumes.
7) Some general recommendations on macros (protein = 4 calories/gram, carbs = 4 cals/gram, fat = 9 cals/gram)
- protein: 0.6g-0.8g/lb of body weight - fat: 0.4g-0.6g/lb of body weight - carbs: fill in the rest of your calorie allowance
Example for 200 lb male trying to eat 2200 calories;
protein: 200 x 0.8 = 160 gram | 160 x 4 cals = 640 cals
fat: 200 x 0.5 = 100 grams | 100 x 9 cals = 900 cals
carbs: 900 cals + 640 cals = 1540 | 2200 - 1540 = 660 | 660 / 4 cals = 165 grams
Therefore the 200lb male will consume 2200 calories by eating 160g of protein, 100g of fat and 165g of carbs.
When and how these calories are consumed doesn't really matter unless your really care about athletic performance.(1-2% to be gained maybe in meal timing and nutrient partitioning) So eat how and whatever you prefer. If that means 1 huge meal or 5 small ones no problem.
I'd recommend a balanced diet consisting of fresh natural foods. Also 1 hour of exercise per day (some days cardio, other days weights(focus on compounds; squat, deadlift, bench press, shoulder press, pullups, rows)).
Nothing else. Just walking outside.
It's extremely enjoyable and relaxing - as well as mentally stimulating and interesting. In the city, in the country - even in a terrible suburb. 3-4 miles takes about an hour.
Pro tip: people who don't walk much at all will experience knee/shin/back pain as a result of walking 2-4 miles per day. The solution is simple: keep walking. Your body was built to walk and the walking will fix those problems for you. You'll be surprised that it only takes 2-3 weeks for this to happen.
What you described is a reasonable way to get a starting point, but the math almost never works out the way you described. Instead, you must track your body's response over a week or two to a very repetitive diet, then change one or two variables at a time and repeat the tracking process until you get the desired result.
Additionally, the metabolic response to overfeeding varies greatly between individuals; some people respond to excess calories with a significant rise in body temperature and heightened energy, while others show no change in body temperature and actually get tired after eating.
I'm not saying that "slow metabolism" is a legitimate reason someone can't get fit. Only that it isn't fair to assume everyone is the same; some people DO have a much harder time losing fat and staying lean.
The best thing you can do right now is sit down and make a meal plan, then go shopping for it, today, right now. Here: chicken , frozen vegetables, water. Cook it all, then eat as much of that to feeling totally full, with your choice of sauce, and you will lose weight. Guaranteed. No exercise required, no limits on how much you can eat.
It's not the math that does or does not work. It's the psychological and mental effects of the above advice.
If person A feels physically sick and completely unable to function while in a 500 calorie daily deficit that's a very different outcome than person B who barely notices that exact same deficit.
That's what leads to this silly argument over whether the "math works" or not.
I think the rational calorie deficit/surplus calculation needs to always be accompanied with a large amount of sympathy and understanding that the psychological and mental effects of these "simple steps" can vary dramatically.
Actually, the physiological effects outside of weight loss/gain are also different.
> If person A feels physically sick and completely unable to function while in a 500 calorie daily deficit that's a very different outcome than person B who barely notices that exact same deficit.
And its probably a sign of a very different physiological response, not merely a "psychological and mental" one.
This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but recommending pull-ups to someone out of shape who needs to loose weight is just bizarre.
If someone was a beginner on the bench press, would you start them at 250lbs and yell at them to push harder? No. That would be stupid and dangerous.
Yet somehow fat people are supposed to will themselves to do a pull up, which is basically the equivalent.
Yes, a pull-up is a tall order for someone who is overweight or for most females - and even if you can do one or two pullups, that's not a good basis for working out that part of your body. You should be shooting for 10-12 reps, etc.
However, a "pull-up" can really be though of as any compound exercise that requires you to use your lats and biceps to pull yourself up OR pull something down to you.
So look for the "lat pulldown" machine and adjust the weight accordingly. It's the same thing.
Some trainees would be better off simply stretching for a month before doing any resistance training.
These details need to be assessed on a case by case basis. This is just an overview.
Negative pull-ups or lat pull-down could be used until the required strength is there.
I was able to start doing pull-ups after a few months of doing bent over rows with a $25 set of resistance bands.
It is very difficult to figure all of the details out, because there is so much money to be made by convincing people to buy into gimmicks. The OP has the right general ideas, though.
If you are managing to lose pure fat, this is true; in reality, it probably won't be. Its more like 600 calorie deficit per pound of muscle, and, ceteris paribus, the greater the calorie deficit, the greater the proportion of weight loss that will be from muscle. (OTOH, the more overweight you are, ceteris paribus, the greater the percentage of the weight loss that will be from fat, so if you are very overweight, then a very aggressive calorie deficit is more tolerable than when you are less overweight.)
Losing muscle is more rapid weight loss than losing fat, but its generally not what people seeking to "lose weight" really want, so its important to not overdo the calorie deficit (what "overdo" means depends on how high your body fat is currently, various things that vary from individual to individual, and to a certain extent what the exercise pattern and particular diet pattern is that you are doing, since that affects maintenance of muscle mass.)
1. How accurately do we know how many calories are needed for maintenance? I would imagine this is highly variable, unless there is evidence to show it is not. People's activity can be quite different day to day. Also is there evidence that metabolism occurs at a consistent rate? If all these add up to an error that is an order of magnitude less than 500, only then can we reliably use the number 500.
2. There is some new research [1] that shows that we may have to rethink the calorie-labels based on how foods are digested. For example cooked food are sometimes digested more completely than raw food, leading to a net intake of more calories.
[1] http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2013/02/have-we-been-mi...
1. Food is too damn good. We've developed food to be tastier and tastier, setting off more and more pleasure sensations, almost to the point where it loops back around and becomes disgusting.
2. Some people under stress do not eat. Other people under stress eat more. People who eat more when stressed will gain weight, and become more stressed about their weight gain.
I'm talking about the morbidly obese here, not just people about twenty pounds overweight.
What I did for myself was to make a few adjustments:
1. Eat healthier versions of food that I actually like. I mean, sure, a fried chicken sandwich or a hamburger can be delicious. But so is a turkey sandwich, or grilled chicken. When I lost weight, I chose the lower calorie options that I still enjoyed.
2. Avoid pointless food. French fries are great, but they're just filler. Soda is tasty (though I actually dislike it now that I've had distance from it), but it's not substantively adding to my enjoyment of a meal. Stop focusing on sides and enjoy the main course on its own.
3. Exercise reasonably and consistently. It's not sustainable to go from sedentary obesity to daily hill sprints. Start with walking more, move on to exercise twice a week. Progressively build up from there. Find something you can enjoy doing (for me, I enjoy lifting weights).
There's a lot more I could talk about (e.g. better sleep, realistic expectations, tolerating hunger) as well. I can't say I'm perfectly healthy now, but I've hopefully saved myself from the long-term health effects of obesity.
While I'm no serious athlete I now enjoy -- and recognize that I enjoy -- getting out and doing things, pushing myself when hiking or biking, and this has given me the ability to spend good deals of time outdoors enjoying the world. It's a great change of pace from the almost-completely-computer-focused stuff I'd done previously.
From what I understand about modern nutritional science, this is not all that useful without having a look at e.g. the amount of carbohydrates and the glycemic index of the food you eat.
It seems that most studies agree that losing wait is most successful with a low carb + high protein diet. Most other approaches going with higher carb content usually just lead to insulin spikes and make you feel hungry at unnecessary times. Unless you like suffering, have impressive self control and don't mind what bloodsugar does to your body, that's probably not a good idea.
If you really want to eat carbohydrates, at least make sure you get a good amount of fiber with them, so it slows down their intake and reduces the amount of insulin your body fires off in response.
I would say the behavioural part (tracking weight etc) is probably a good idea. The actual diet part of this should probably be discarded.
It's a very basic approach but if you stick to the math... you will lose weight.
A focus on nutrient dense foods will make you feel fuller and will be better for your nutritional status and disease risk.
Nop, you can still eat enough calories to gain weight while running a marathon every day.
Eating at a caloric deficit isn't independent of eating micronutrient dense food.
False. Say you're eating 3000 calories a day and you exercise for an hour per day and burn 500 calories, but your caloric maintenance is 2300 calories. So you're at 2500 calories but you need to eat less than 2300 to lose weight. [1]
If you do not know how many calories you are eating, and your maintenance level you will not be able to ascertain the correct level to lose weight. You can exercise all you want, but if you're eating more than you're burning you will not lose weight.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_law_of_thermodynamics and it in practice http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763382/
>A bit of regular exercise will work for all but the most silly examples.
I do not think it's wise to make such a large and unsubstantiated blanket statement, as I have mentioned prior it comes down to how much you are consuming and burning each day, over a prolonged period of time. It is also not helpful to say 'a bit of regular', that statement is hazy and it's impossible to know what you actually mean.
Counting calories is like keeping tracking of your spending. It won't solve your problems, but it will highlight areas of concern. If you're caloric intake goal is 1800, and you're consistently eating 2000, calorie counting will help you figure out where you can drop those 200 calories.
Similar to weight measurements, if you're losing weight at a consistent rate (~1-2 lbs/week), you can stay the course. If you flat line or start going up, it's good time to start reviewing what you're doing.
Of course, the situation is nuanced. For example, you could eat 1800 calories worth of cookies, or your weight gain could be caused due to the growth of muscle (which does happen).
At the outset, however, those 2 practices will get the machine going.
People can lose weight and achieve goals using a wide variety of dietary programs (or none at all, if you throw in exercise).
If the hacker diet works for somebody, that's great. If not, they're plenty of other stuff to try.
That being said, people still will.
Incorrect. Eating at a consistent caloric deficit over a significant period of time will result in weight loss [1]. Any diet which incorporates that will 'work', different strategies of adhering to the deficit will allow different people to be consistent, which is the key to prolonged weight loss.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_law_of_thermodynamics and it in practice http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763382/
It may become more prevalent that the notion of eating consistently will change too. You cannot eat at a deficit for any period of time without getting pretty severe diminishing returns as your body adapts to its in vs out. 5:2 is a very simple model of calorie cycling, just an unsustainable on.
Protein and calories have the same calorie content per gram, so if you hit your protein macros then there is no downside to eating carbs, and actually for active people your gains and recovery will suffer dramatically from lack of carbs. Overloading on protein has the same downsides as overloading on carbs in simple calories in vs out terms.
I think it's fairly common knowledge now that fats are largely good (saturated fats help with testosterone regulation for example) even though food producers seem to be wilfully slow in catching up (low fat items being filled with sugar thus making them far more unhealthy).
I'm not sure I entirely buy into the if it fits your macros (IIFYM) way of thinking, but it's not a bad strategy for a lot of situations.
IIFYM is a misleading acronym, it was born out of frustration with people asking "can I eat x? can I eat y?", it it meant to mean "If it fits your protein, carbs, fat, fiber and micronutrients".
The fat one I find interesting:
> I think it's fairly common knowledge now that fats are largely good (saturated fats help with testosterone regulation for example) even though food producers seem to be wilfully slow in catching up (low fat items being filled with sugar thus making them far more unhealthy).
While these things mostly go over my head, I could get my better half (PhD in nutritional epidemiology) to make a comment. Her answer:
"Saturated fats are not accepted to be healthy by the scientific community. Unsaturated fats are healthy, reduce cardiovascular risk, and promote satiety, so eating some is good, even if they have a higher calorie count per gram"
That being said, this comment mostly targets a healthy diet to prohibit e.g. cardiovascular diseases. While those usually correlate to reducing weight to a normal level, they might not be the same :)
Why? Because this is plain wrong.
Here some links that are worth checking out on this subject:
Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009...
Article backed with research: http://authoritynutrition.com/top-8-reasons-not-to-fear-satu...
A personal story: http://grassfedcrossfit.com/what-a-diet-of-70-saturated-fat-...
Some more info: https://www.bulletproofexec.com/podcast-16-everything-you-ne...
Luckily, my significant other is (which is there the quote came from).
Her answer: "The first article shows no association of saturated fats with cardiovascular disease. No association does not mean healthy." and "Substituting polyunsaturated fats for saturated fats has been shown to lower ldl and is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease. This comes from both robust randomized controlled trial evidence, and data from prospective cohort studies"
I think the whole idea is that people agree that unsaturated fats do have health benefits. There is no clear evidence that saturated fats do. They might not actively cause harm, but they also don't have comparable benefits to health.
Monounsaturated fat is a much better choice as it is nearly as effective as saturated fat at promoting hormone biosynthesis. The problem with saturated fat is that it triggers expression of genes for fat storage, and the effect is particularly pronounced in visceral tissue (which is the least healthy place to store it!).
"If it fits your macros" is bullshit, because there is a definite difference between sugar and other carbs, and a definite difference between saturated fat and other fats. Try going on a diet where all your carbs come from sugar, and almost all your fat comes from saturated fat and see how you look and feel.
> CONCLUSIONS
>
> Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful
> weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they
> emphasize.
> The principal finding is that the diets were equally successful in promoting
> clinically meaningful weight loss and the maintenance of weight loss over the
> course of 2 years. Satiety, hunger, satisfaction with the diet, and attendance
> at group sessions were similar for all diets.There are ranges of protein, fat, carbs that is possible to lose weight on. Some of them are just more effective than others.
> By 2 years, weight loss remained similar in those who were assigned to a
> diet with 15% protein and those assigned to a diet with 25% protein (3.0
> and 3.6 kg, respectively); in those assigned to a diet with 20% fat and
> those assigned to a diet with 40% fat (3.3 kg for both groups); and in
> those assigned to a diet with 65% carbohydrates and those assigned to a
> diet with 35% carbohydrates (2.9 and 3.4 kg, respectively) (P>0.20 for all
> comparisons)
[...]
> The principal finding is that the diets were equally successful in promoting
> clinically meaningful weight loss and the maintenance of weight loss over the
> course of 2 years. Satiety, hunger, satisfaction with the diet, and attendance
> at group sessions were similar for all diets.GI becomes irrelevant once you eat more than once every 24 hours, which for most people is the norm. [1]
This is a classic example of an underdamped control system leading to oscillations. It happens because the bandwidth of the control system isn't sufficient for the bandwidth of the input. As an engineer if I faced this problem I typically would try and increase the bandwidth of the control system to solve the problem. But that's not really an option in the human body (yet) so the only real solution is to try and control the bandwidth of the input.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_system#/media/File:Seco...
The more you control the input bandwidth (excess sugars) the less you're going to end up with oscillations and I suspect that those oscillations are what help people really put on weight. Eat too much sugar, it gets stored into fat and a sugar crash. That sugar crash presents as "false" hunger, so you eat again. Probably you eat too much sugar again, and so the cycle repeats.
There's probably a lot of variation from human to human on the insulin control system bandwidth, and there's a lot of variation in the diet different people choose to eat. So if one person has high bandwidth and generally good diet, perhaps it only makes a difference like you've suggested. Someone with low bandwidth and a terrible diet might see substantial improvements by doing nothing more than cutting large quantities of high GI food from their diet.
We've also seen studies that say that this is actually gives you an increased risk of regaining weight, once you lost it.
It really seems that the old recommendations: Everything in moderation, exercise and balanced diet are the best. Every "shortcut" modern diets present seems to fail in one way or another.
I think the issue is that we've created a culture where a people who loss weight, what ever the method, sets out to write a book or blog, detailing their new found wisdom. It's all anecdotal, proof is retrofitted to fit the result and claims are never properly verified or tested on a broad cross section of people. These weight loss anecdotes sells because we want them to work. Have you ever seen someone ask another person: "How did you loss all that weight?" and then their disappointment when the answer is "I eat less and workout". That's not what people want to hear, they want you to say that you just eat a lemon and half a pound of bacon every Tuesday.
Eat less that you burn, and try to get your basic nutrient requirement meet - That every single healthy diet summed up.
But yeah nobody should follow this book to the letter, in 2015...
I actually really like this approach. Everybody has different ideas about what is good to eat or what isn't, but in the end, you only lose weight if you eat less than you burn. The Hackers Diet gives you the freedom to choose what you think is best to eat, while giving you feedback about what kind of effect it has on your weight.
Also one very important realization: your fat cells will only release fat when your blood sugar level is low, and when that happens, your brain will receive messages you should eat. So if it's strong or not, if you want to burn fat, you will be hungry. Exercise suppresses this feeling a bit though, but unless you can do that everyday, it won't be very effective.
Nope, it's low insulin that unlocks fat cells, not low blood sugar.
Counting calories is an extremely simplistic world view, and while it's very comforting to have a simple rule to follow, I believe it's a very bad idea to not care what you put in your body, as opposed to just how much of it.
See e.g. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-hal... or dozens of subsequent pieces.
The better way to phrase this is to avoid trying to claim unique merit: “This diet works for me. Maybe it will work for you.” That keeps the truthful part but drops the magical claims about why everyone else's choices aren't as valid.
For instance, this article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1856434/
which I found linked from a nutritionist promoting AIP, only goes as far as
However, in several autoimmune conditions it appears that increased permeability is a constant and early feature of the disease process. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that in some conditions increased permeability is critical to the development of disease as if it is abrogated the disease does not develop.
Note all the equivocation in the science there.
Edit: Actually linking one might be difficult, but for such a categorical statement, you should be able to cite a recent textbook, not just a few articles.
The full version of these exercises have some more variety, as every 12 steps the exercises get a bit more challenging.
This definitely works! I used to drink coffee with grass-fed butter every morning when I woke up and also took a few other things of Bulletproof diet to heart and lost over 30 kilo's in two years time.
Friends of mine are very positive about this and Keto seems to very successful as well, as seen here: http://www.reddit.com/r/keto
I do the 5BX myself though (where the ladder is based on), as I mentioned in an earlier comment :)
Protip: Make (or find and print) a calendar and hang it in a visible spot. Put an X every day you do the exercises, and then it's just a matter of not breaking the chain :)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/true-weight/id287941226?mt=8
I don’t necessarily disagree with calorie counting, but forcing yourself to not eat when you are hungry is the key to failure. I think this is at the root of the low-carb approach in which the foods that you eat don’t stimulate your body’s fat-making hormones.
If your body is being asked to make fat (through raised insulin levels), it doesn’t matter how many calories you eat, they are mostly being stored and you will continue to be hungry.
Low-carb helps you eat fewer calories because more of the calories you eat are available for energy and your body will signal that you are satiated.
If you want to go really low-carb, you can go into ketosis, where your body realizes it can also start eating its own fat for energy and promptly does so. Then you are satiated on even fewer calories because your body can get what it needs from itself.
I’ve found ketosis to be very reliable and even better, I find I concentrate much better because I’m not so distracted by how I’m going to get my next snack to much while I code. That concept is no longer a part of my consciousness. You don’t realize how noisy your brain is around food until it’s quiet.