The best two things you can do long term are to learn how to cook and to make friends who like playing sports regularly. Note neither of those two things require being in shape to start making progress.
Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
11–20 of 135 posts
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#12Whole30 or Paleo.
No sugar. Read labels.
If you are just getting started I recommend trying the Whole30 plan. If you can power through for 30 days it really can change how you eat.
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#13Simple, old-fashioned calorie counting worked for me. Eat less energy than you need each day, and your body will draw on fat reserves to make up the shortfall.
I used the NHS 6-week weight loss plan [0] as a general guide and inspiration, calculated my daily requirement in kcal based on a steady rate of weight loss, then used MyFitnessPal to track everything I ate and drank. The first few days are really hard work and frustrating, weighing out everything and checking nutritional values everywhere, though scanning barcodes in MFP does make that slightly easier and after a few days it becomes more natural and as a stats nerd it's very satisfying to achieve a day under the target calories and with the right balance of macros (protein/fat/carbs), and even more satisfying to watch the weight reducing as the weeks go by. Try not to lose more than 2kg/month, it's not too healthy or sustainable.
[0] https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/start-the-nhs-we...
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#14One personal observation I can make about my own journey... there are foods that I never would have touched 10 years ago that today I find enjoyable and foods that have become more palatable and even decent over time.
I was never a “salad person”. Now there are several salads that I enjoy. I would never touch beans, now I recently found I can sub them for rice in some dishes and still enjoy it.
This is something that happened over years of trying to eat better. There are little things you may find hit more quickly but the macro stuff just takes time.
For example, cutting out soda completely for a month. Not even diet soda. Just find something else to drink, ideally which isn’t fizzy. It’s a relatively small ask as far as “diets” go. After a month or two, you may go back to taste a soda and wonder how the heck you ever liked it.
There are diets which focus on deprivation. And if you actively trying to cut fat then you will need to be in a deficit and you will feel hungry.
But there is also the long term “diet” of just trying to eat better and the good news is that the more you eat healthier foods (e.g. lower sugar) the more your palate will adapt and you will eventually find the sweeter things too sweet and the less sweet things more pleasing. Which makes the whole thing much more sustainable.
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#15I think maybe intermittent fastening is okay, eating more mediterrain stuff... but for instance just eat twice from 12 to 8pm and then don't eat anything till the next day :-)
I've done so in the past (intermittent fasting). Once with success and once without, so it's not really a silver bullet kind of thing.
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#16Forget all the fad diets. Eat sensible. Eat low glycemic foods. Eat smaller amounts, more frequently. You will feel full all day. AND, give yourself a cheat meal once a week to reward yourself!
The trick to weight loss is doing a variety of exercises that make you breathe heavy but not pushing your body too hard. You don't have to train like a pro athlete or do cross fit crap. Take your time. If you lose it slower there's more likelihood it becomes habit.
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#17I think dieting follows an 80-20 rule where you can get 80% of the results with 20% of the effort required to get max results. Most people's issue is simply that they eat too many calorically dense foods, so they need to eat more calories to feel full. A lot of people fail at dieting because they recognize that they need to cut out calorically dense foods (e.g. potato chips, pastries) but then fail to replace them with less calorically dense foods, so they start feeling very hungry and go back to eating unhealthily.
So, I recommend following the typical advice of cutting out junk food and drinkable beverages (alcohol, soda, juice) but also to EAT MORE VEGETABLES. Vegetables are simply amazing, usually high in fiber, packed with micronutrients, low calorie, and they keep you full. Don't be afraid to add some butter/oil (in moderation!) and salt to them either.
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#18Calorie counting can work, though I have a hard time keeping up with that long term. I tend to fall days behind and then just give up. It's yet another thing that I then "have" to do.
I started doing a diet similar to keto, but tried to keep things as simple as possible. ~25g of protein at every meal, The fitness coach who helped me start my weight loss journey insisted that I stop thinking and calling it a diet. A diet implies something temporary, and what you're after is a lifestyle change. The mental aspect of "lifestyle change" has helped me a lot for whatever reason.
So far I'm 2 months in and down over 20 pounds, with very minute amounts of exercise. Weightlifting is great for building muscle, but isn't the end-all-be-all of exercise. Start as simple as possible. I go for a 30-45 min walk with my dog after I get home from work. And that's about it.
Best of luck on your journey, I've done a lot of different things professionally but being successful with changing my eating habits and lifestyle (even if it's been relatively short) has been one of the greatest things I've ever felt. It turned me from obese and cranky into slightly overweight and waking up with a smile.
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#19Whole30 or Paleo. No sugar. Read labels. If you are just getting started I recommend trying the Whole30 plan. If you can power through for 30 days it really can change how you eat.
No evidence to support Whole30. In fact, it excludes beans and legumes which are an excellent source of protein and fiber.
Re: Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?
#20A few generic tips:
- Don't think of it as a diet, do something that could theoretically sustainable for the rest of your life
- Learn about food and how it affects your body (that's an important knowledge investment, given you'll be eating for the rest of your life; nutrition is a complex field and studies are not super reliable, but you start to notice patterns with time)
- Try food replacement powders (or bars) to replace unhealthy meals with something more balanced (I use Huel but depending on geography)
- Eat enough proteins (how much depends on your goals and your body) - with some exercise, this will help you build muscle
- Sleep plenty
- Split your meals (and your proteins) across the day to avoid hunger
- Get a reliable scale and weight yourself at the same time every day
- Start with an online calculator (like iifym.com), try to eat that amount of calories for 2 weeks and monitor your weight
- Keep track of calories / proteins / fibres / sugar / saturated fat / salt in the food you're eating so as to reach your goals
- Do strength training to build muscle instead of tons of cardio (this will help you to build muscle, which will increase your metabolism) - I would still do some HIIT cardio for your heart's health
- When you reach a plateau and you're not losing weight anymore I'd recommend adding more cardio instead of cutting calories (mainly not to lower the amount of protein intake)
- Once you're happy with your body fat percentage I'd go back to strength training + little cardio.
On training:
Body-weight training is perfectly fine even if you can't lift weight (even though if you have health concerns you may want to consult your doctor, as body weight exercise can still be problematic).
This can be a good starting point: http://www.startbodyweight.com/p/start-bodyweight-basic-rout...
Once things get easy you can decide if you want to improve your endurance (by going for sets with high reps) or your strength (by going for sets with low reps and adding resistance - like weights).
My story (hoping you'll find something useful):
I recently lost 16kg from 84kg to 68kg over 4-5 months going from roughly 24% to 13% body fat. I may have lost some muscle but very little - my strength and my measurements seem to be increased.
What I do exactly on top of following the above tips:
- I'm on Huel 95% of the meals and "cheating" every once and then when I'm missing chewable food or for social eating (Huel helps because you know exactly how much you're eating)
- When eating food which isn't Huel I'm roughly calculating how many calories would that be and how many proteins - and then I'm adjusting my Huel meals or replacing some with protein powder
- I eat every 2 hours, 6 meals a day, from 10am to 8pm (fasting for 14 hours, which is something I've accidentally been doing all my life).
- For the first 3 months of my journey I did only strength training (push-ups, pull-ups, squats, various core exercises)
- In the last 2 months I added 1 hour of cardio per day as I wasn't losing weight anymore and I still wanted to burn more fat.
Future plans:
I plan to lose some more weight and then focus on building muscle + little cardio by going 200 calories over maintenance and cutting every once and then.
I already tried in the past to build muscle with 600 calories over maintenance and I definitely put too much fat on.
My workout regime is going to stay the same and I'll keep on eating mainly Huel (unless I create / find a tool which will help me create a diet as structured and precise as Huel and deliver the ingredients to my door).
Best of luck on your journey!
I'm not affiliated to any of the products / websites mentioned.