Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

This is so so right. I've went from someone who was skinnyfat until my early 20s to maintaining an 8-pack (around 7-8% bf) which has its own problems..but i digress it is generally great, simply by controlling hormones and eating to sleep well. I usually eat whatever I want, but I consider the effects a certain food has on insulin. By the way, this change coincided with me studying nutrition/biochemistry and undergoing a master in dietetics at a tertiary institution so it isn't based on pure anecdata. REMEMBER THIS - CONTROL YOUR HORMONES

Your body won't put on fat without insulin, the downside is that you probably wont put on a lot of muscle either. This is a heuristic I employ however is more complicated in reality. We can go into this if you want.

In order to blunt the insulin response of say a sugary snack, you can combine a fat source (pistachios) etc. so there is a balance of fats, carbohydrates and protein. This lowers the insulin response, and leads to lower fat accumulation - remember fat not weight - you still gonna put on weight. Other tricks you can employ include timing these treats or taking magnesium which helps your insulin sensitivity.

What I do: Usually perform some fasted training - usually 20-40 minutes of loaded carries in the morning, something like suitcase carries, farmers walks that requires some form of resistance - not everyday maybe every other day.

morning green tea usually boosts my energy levels - and has some l-theanine and caffeine for body composition benefits

what is actually important is receiving some low-angle light from outdoors as this is optimal for mood, depression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1TxQj9IsQ) and sleep later in the day - (https://hubermanlab.com/toolkit-for-sleep/). Why is sleep important - A deficit in sleep will reduce leptin [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535701/] which is a hormone that suppresses hunger. If you sleep badly You might crave certain foods (especially carby crap/sweets that you dont really need). So let's control sleep, because you are controlling the root cause of your dietary compulsions. When i don't sleep well, it helps to know that I am simply at the whims of my hormones, and I nap lol. I also perform: Cold exposure according to andrew huberman protocol - this lowers body fat/increases the expression of dopamine and primes your body to create brown fat which has more mitochondria https://www.instagram.com/tv/CT2j35IAeLZ/?hl=en

I usually exercise outdoors in the sun - which is kind of a bad idea for other reasons here in Australia due to a hole in the ozone layer (https://www.cancer.org.au/cancer-information/types-of-cancer...) but it ensures adequate vitamin d which has been shown to be important lately given the rise of COVID..

The time I exercise is important - it's in the afternoon around 4-6pm for an hour or more.

I take magnesium (chelated 100-300gr, you should take biglycinate if you can 100-300gr) 2 hours before bed. This alone improved sleep by 50%. THen combined with blue light blockers and f.lux - this usually results in 8 hrs uninterrupted sleep 99% consistency. Probably the biggest ROI of any product was the blue light blockers, they knock me out around 30 minutes after i wear them - not sure if placebo but when I don't wear them i dont sleep well.

Also - forget your idea of weight loss. You want to be in health. This doesn't mean weight loss - if you're 90kg and 10% body fat that's far superior to 80 kg and 25% bodyfat...

FWIW: If you want a magic pill to fix your problems you probably won't find it. You need to take care of the main things: sleep, diet, exercise (in that order)...sleep rules all.

remember - we are simply meat bags with levers (that are hormones) my guy. you can pull the levers with sleep, diet, exercise and timing of these factors.

That being said, there are certain things you can take that might bring you from 95% to 98% - i write about nootropics at https://nootritious.com - hint there's nothing that is better than sleep. so optimise that before anything else.

I am not an expert and don't have the motivation to lose weight. But I am weird so here it goes

Tire out your jaw. Chewing gum, those stupid jaw exercise rubbers will help. Chew something to make your jaw super fatigued and you will find yourself giving up half way through a meal.

Drinking a ton of luke warm water helps. You will end up having no room in your stomach.

Menthol chewing gum makes everything taste horrible.

If you don’t wash your dishes, you should. Easy way too address your action by resolving the consequences.

Use smaller utensils and dishware.

I don't think this is accurate, or at least not universally so. The pandemic has given me the opportunity to experiment a bit with losing weight. These days I mostly do eat one meal a day (sometime between noon and 6pm). I'll occasionally have a light snack aside from that one meal. I lost a good 15 lbs in just a few months this way. It was mostly fat. I kept up a running regimen (8-12 mi per week). I felt amazing. Much more energy, flatter stomach, better-defined chest, arms, thighs, and calves.

Unfortunately I've gone back to some of my old ways over the past 9 months or so with restaurants and bars reopening, and I've gained back some of the weight. This tells me that it's not really how many meals I have, but what's in them, and how many calories. So I'd probably be fine with two or three meals a day, just healthier choices and fewer overall calories. But I don't believe one meal a day is a problem; just it isn't necessary, and you can still lose weight with a more normal meal pattern.

- build muscles to increase you "static" calories consumption.

- Semaglutide shots

- Have you heart broken

I gain and lose weight all the time. Both are straightforward: eat at a caloric surplus or deficit. Your approach is an attempt to increase your basal metabolic rate which is probably not as helpful as you think. You probably wouldn’t be able to increase it by much more than very light exercise. Our bodies aren’t fires.

What helps the most to lose weight:

Eat lots of foods high in fiber. This is the biggest hack and very few people talk about it - the fiber greatly increases your feeling of satiety. Fiber has a lot of good effects too on your cardiovascular system and (obviously) digestive system, so you should be getting a lot of it all the time. But to lose weight swap things with higher fiber versions. For breakfast have some oatmeal, for dinner have some beans and broccoli with whatever else, swap white bread with whole grain, etc

Protein also increases satiety to a lesser extent. Lean proteins are your friend. Chicken breast is really good but it has no flavor so don’t be afraid to add some sauce to it (within reason). Stay away from fatty meats.

Ideally you should count calories, but for most people they probably won’t. It’s not that hard once you build the habit. You are just adding vectors.

For exercise, you can start lifting and doing heavy cardio if you want. It will help if you stick with it. But something not a lot of people realize is that just walking can burn a lot of calories. It doesn’t need to be strenuous. So going on a 1-2 hour walk, or walking to work or on errands if you’re able to do so, can add a few extra hundred calories burned per day. And really you only need to burn an extra 500 calories per day to lose 1lb/week, so walking can make a big difference.

My weirder tips: nicotine and stimulants help but might be more destructive long term. You can get ephedrine supplements still if you know where to look but use at your own risk.