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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?

#631
Lose the gimmicks (oxygen tanks) first of all. You'll waste a lot of mental energy on things that don't work or will frustrate you.

Chicken. Fish. Rice.

Make that the core of your diet. If you're a vegan or vegetarian this obviously won't work for you. White rice is perfectly fine (just as it is in healthy long-living Japan), with this diet it simply won't matter whether you eat white or brown rice.

Ideally throw in some stray vegetables that you like (cold broccoli, carrots, cauliflower happen to be my favorites). The vegetables are sides or snacks, you never need to consume actual salads-as-meal, it's purely optional.

Stop consuming any beverages with high-fructose corn syrup in it, including all sodas (if in the US). Ideally stop drinking sugar in general, avoid sugar sweetened beverages. Drinking lots of sugar is typically one of the most common and dumbest things overweight people do.

Never consume high-calorie breakfasts, switch instead to lower calorie breakfasts (if any). I prefer yogurt, turkey bacon, or egg & cheese sandwiches. There are a lot of ways to go with a low calorie breakfast though.

No garbage snacks during the day. The little high-calorie snack fillers are weight monsters and people often don't notice them, they don't count them into their dietary problems when they're trying to figure out what has gone wrong.

Once per week you can eat anything you like. You can eat a bag of doritos. You can eat an entire pizza. Chocolate. A tub of ice cream. Consume a soda. Fast-food / drive-thru. Whatever you like. The once per week garbage day is meant to be slightly over-done (so you don't want those things for a while), it's meant to get rid of cravings and act as an outlet to consume unhealthy things. Unless you're a savage about it, you won't be able to consume enough calories in that one bad day to meaningfully wreck your progress from the other six days.

No weight lifting or working out required at all. Although I'd suggest if you don't like working out, to just go on long walks every day for the general health benefit.

Count your daily calorie intake before you begin changing your diet (for two weeks or so). Understand your body and its metabolism. How many calories do you need to consume each day to gain / lose / hold steady on weight? Then as you begin to change your diet, continue to count daily calorie intake, this is part of the experimentation process for yourself.

~1400 to ~1800 calories per day is the consistent target (depending on your height; if you're much shorter or taller than 180-190cm, adjust accordingly), and it's easily reached. You can vary that based on what weight you prefer, how strict you want to be.

If you're consequentially overweight (let's say you weigh 210lbs / 95kg and would like to weigh 170lbs / 77kg), the weight will melt off over time quite trivially. Your body won't have a choice. You won't have to kill yourself in the gym every day, you don't need to do anything special at all.

What you'll find is that there are likely just a few killers in your diet, particularly bad villains (eg soda, ice cream, pasta) that are causing most of the problem. Usually if you eliminate just a few things from your diet, you'll see a big change. The calorie counting is also meant to reveal the primary villains in your diet, they'll typically jump out from the paper after a few weeks of tracking what you're consuming.

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

#632

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…

> 2. It... takes... so... LITTLE! Even just not using your car to do journeys of less than a couple of miles. I don't exercise at all, really. I just walk everywhere, to do my shopping, and for fun. I don't run or jog or lift weights. I cook food from fresh as much as I can, avoid too much meat, and I don't have a car. I have a healthy weight and a small (usually) waistline. Like a lot of us I do occasionally still h…

I presume you're American because my society already works like this. The only people I know who use their car on a daily basis live or work very isolated and far from civilization.

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

#635
My tips - * drink a lot of water before & after every meal * get your basics right -- cut out soda and juices, limit white sugar to once or twice a day if you really want it, reduce simple carbs, eat more veggies, etc - you can look this stuff up * skip the elevators & climb stairs * play a physical sport if possible * walk for 10-15min after every single meal * reduce meal portions but don't go too crazy and get hunger headaches

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

#637

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 also prefer 2-3 lifts per week for health, but it amplifies my already prodigious appetite to rediculous levels. I can and have eaten 6000kcal in a sitting. I usually end up gaining fat when I start lifting and haven't ever managed a cut. I always lose weight by not lifting and restricting calories. Right now the intermittent fasting is working well for me. I'm curious how that will work when I start lifting again.

Ya the key to not eating thousands of calories in a single sitting is to just stop after a single serving

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

#638
I’m pretty sure that people who are super thin and fit don’t have any one weird trick, they just have been constantly exercising and counting calories and monitoring their weight for years or decades. There’s a fine line between being a health nut and having an eating disorder, especially in an environment where you are constantly surrounded by dirt cheap junk food. I mean I’m always, always dieting and running just to stay the same weight. It’s a red queen’s race. It's not all or nothing though- put in a moderate effort and you'll be rewarded by being moderately fit. And that's worth doing, for sure. You do feel a lot better when you’re thin and healthy. But there's no magic bullet. Don't beat yourself up for not looking like a movie star- those people spend an inordinate amount of time and effort being good looking, because that's their job. Also don't imagine it's easy. But it's definitely worth doing anyway, even just a little. You get moderate results for moderate effort, and that's ok.

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

#639
post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. It... takes... so... LITTLE! Even just not using your car to do journeys of less than a couple of miles. I don't exercise at all, really. I just walk everywhere, to do my shopping, and for fun. I don't run or jog or lift weights. I cook food from fresh as much as I can, avoid too much meat, and I don't have a car. I have a healthy weight and a small (usually) waistline. Like a lot of us I do occasionally still h…

I presume you're American because my society already works like this. The only people I know who use their car on a daily basis live or work very isolated and far from civilization.

Here in America people make cars a part of their identity and one of the questions you’ll often hear (maybe after a few conversations) is “Do you drive?”.

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

#640
Get a $300 Oculus Quest 2 and buy Thrill of the Fight for $10. It’s the most intense short HIIT workout I’ve experienced. It’ll blow your mind.

Also get a pressure cooker and use it to make seasoned unsalted black beans at the start of every week. Use them to substitute all your white carbs. You can read Gary Taubes book Why We Get Fat to understand this mechanism and how low GI helps.

My goto for the past years is 30 mins of yoga every day but that unfortunately requires consistency and is a time commitment. If you want to go this route, don’t bother with classes. Just get the Beachbody app and do the 3 Week Yoga Retreat which will teach you everything you need to get started and give you a solid foundation.

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