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Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

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Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#561

Post by StevePerkins »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #547
StevePerkins wrote: post #513

Lift weights two or three times per week, and walk just barely enough to avoid being completely sedentary. Nothing crazy, I'm talking about using the weight machines at a gym, and walking just ~8k steps per day with a pedometer watch to gamify it. I'm a naturally obese person, and I've read a thousand of these threads over the years. Nearly every comment is either: * Telling you to "hack your body", with keto or what…

Exercise is great, but I found it was not enough. I looked for low-hanging fruit in my diet (example: soft drinks) and cut those (lost 10 pounds just losing the lunchtime soft drinks). Even with the exercise (have "closed all three rings" since COVID) I hit a wall below which I am not losing weight. From experience though I know I need to cut the portion size of my meals. Years ago when I was preparing to undergo sur…

> Exercise is great, but I found it was not enough.

I just want to reach through the screen and shake you while screaming. This is what I'm talking about, with every mention of exercise being dismissively pivoted back to diet hacks!

Exercise is not a substitute for eating better, it is a tool for helping you eat better. Of course you should cut out sugary soft drinks and eat smaller portions! It's just that a minimum amount of exercise helps that happen naturally, rather than requiring herculean amounts of focus and discipline and constantly feeling miserable while trying.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#562

Post by dr_dshiv »

Yoga works for me. I just need to show up and it combines strength training, aerobics plus body mindfulness.

Don’t let junk food come in the house. And that includes white bread.

Pickles are great snack food.

Maybe try wim hof, for breath?

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#563

Post by mightybyte »

gusfrehse wrote: post #540

Maybe should be on another thread but: any weird tips for weight gain?

1. Regularly (three days per week seems to be about right) lift heavy weights using whole-body movements (three sets of five reps of back squat, bench/shoulder press, and deadlift at near maximal weights for you is the ball park of what you're shooting for).

2. Eat lots of calories with adequate protein (30% seems to be good).

If you're a really hard gainer and that still doesn't work for you, try adding a gallon of whole milk a day. That will definitely do it--whole milk evolved for the purpose of putting a lot of muscle on baby cows quickly. I wouldn't say it's a particularly healthy thing to do long-term but that will almost certainly make you gain significant amounts of muscle.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#564

Post by lostallmyfat »

I've tried several things, this is what finally worked:

[0] Make it a one year goal.

[1] Track your calories.

[2] Do some exercise.

[3] Weight yourself every Sunday morning.

[4] No other rules. No restriction on quantity or timing or type of food.

1 is important, because you actually know what's going in. There's a ton of useful apps, and there's no need to be extra rigorous, just be consistent in how you estimate. Notice there is no limit, no restriction - eat whatever quantity you want, of whatever you want. Just log it. This is going to be shocking. It will also become automatic, a mindless habit, no effort required.

2 is important because it diminishes cravings. (And it is healthy at any weight). Even just walking 30 minutes every day is enough (a bit more is better though).

3 is for crossing with the calories tracking. After some weeks/months you can tell what your baseline consumption is, whether you lost, gained or maintained weight (specially if you track your exercise, as well, in case it varies.)

Here's the magic:

After some weeks, you will MAGICALLY START CONTROLLING yourself to not go over some values of total calories that puts you at a daily caloric deficit. Then you will WANT to implement all the other tactics (drinking water, not consuming liquid calories (soda), you will exercise more, you might try some sort of fasting, control your macros (calories, carbs, fat, protein), etc). The key is that you can now measure whatever you try, you have a budget, a long enough time frame and you are accountable.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#567

Post by ianai »

philliphaydon wrote: post #428
vardagsnytt wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I agree, but I would oppose the "much less" advice. If one is not morbidly obese, it is much easier to reduce the number of calories by a small amount and adjust to this lifestyle. Short diets with a strong calorie deficit require careful planning to be effective (exact nr of calories, protein, diet breaks etc). If you assume an average person who is 10kg overweight due to slacking over the last 5-10 years…

If you can cope with eating a lot less for 2-3 weeks. It helps a lot. The stomach stretches but if you eat to satisfy hunger instead of eating to feel full. And do that for a few weeks. You will begin to notice that you feel fuller sooner. As your stomach shrinks a bit as it’s not stretched with food. Doctor told me that and wow huge difference, but that 2-3 weeks was hard.

It’s not perfect though. Plenty of people get their stomachs stapled to reduce their weight, lose weight, and subsequently gain much of that weight back because they’ve behaviorally overcome their stomachs.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#568

Post by JKCalhoun »

cephaslr wrote: post #450

1. Intermittent fasting - I eat breakfast at 10am and last meal at 6pm. Its healthier and gives you 16 hours a day that you don't eat. Much easier to stay on budget. 2. 2 vegetable smoothies + Huel Black powder a day - I have a 400 calorie Black Huel powder smoothie at 10am and another at 1pm. This smoothie has > 40 grams of protein and I also blend it with frozen spinach (other vegetables as well on occasion) and th…

I like everything you posted except the Black Huel part.

I checked out the link but began to think: come on, isn't there something "natural" instead of adding some commercial powder to a meal/smoothie?

My instinct is, substitute a raw egg for Black Huel but I am probably missing something since I am just dipping my toe into this whole thing.

(Great topic, BTW, I was just getting concerned about my weight last week, trying to decide how to proceed.)

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#570

Post by Chris2048 »

StevePerkins wrote: post #513

Lift weights two or three times per week, and walk just barely enough to avoid being completely sedentary. Nothing crazy, I'm talking about using the weight machines at a gym, and walking just ~8k steps per day with a pedometer watch to gamify it. I'm a naturally obese person, and I've read a thousand of these threads over the years. Nearly every comment is either: * Telling you to "hack your body", with keto or what…

> I've read a thousand of these threads over the years. Nearly every comment is either:

I've read them too, I've not experienced the two categories you describe. The keto comments almost always suggest some form of exercise too, and there are "eat well" comments that often go into detail. Are you sure you aren't just recalling the most frustrating comments?

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