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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?

#831

Post by dangus »

Calories in, calories out. Use an app like LoseIt or MyFitnessPal. Start by just logging, don't even change your diet at first, just log what you're doing accurately paying close attention to the actual portion sizes you're eating.

Especially if you mostly make your own food, buy a food scale and do as much measuring by weight as possible.

I think most people's diet quality is at least okay, but the portions and moderation is what gets you.

If this method makes you feel too hungry, increase your vegetable and fiber intake. Anything involving empty carbs and sugar is going to be the least efficient at making you feel full.

Cook with as many whole ingredients as possible. If it comes in a box or is packaged in some way, it's probably not as good. For example, eat fruit instead of having a packaged dessert.

Stay hydrated.

Try to maintain the joy of eating, or else you'll just hate your "diet" and quit. There are many delicious healthy recipes out there.

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

#832

Post by SCNP »

thrwy_918 wrote: post #712
galangalalgol wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As someone who can easily eat 4000 calories of real food in a single meal before feeling satiated, I have found that the fix for me is psychological and behavioral. I have an internalized belief that unless I carry on eating until I feel satisfied, then I will feel hungry and uncomfortable after the meal. However, this is not actually true - if I instead eat a reasonable sized portion for my height and activity level…

There is an Okinawan principle to eating that says to eat until 80% full. There is a lag between actually being full and your brain realizing you're full. I can't find actual papers about it but if you look up Hara Hachi Bu you can find a ton of pulpy news articles about it.

Edit: I have the same problem. I ate a whole frozen pizza a few days ago and felt like crap for a day afterward. Not just a little personal one either. A full Screamin' Sicilian pepperoni...

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

#833

Post by ruh-roh »

Merad wrote: post #738
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…

> walking just ~8k steps per day You kind of gloss over this, but 8k steps is around 3 miles of walking for the average person. You might be able to get that "naturally" if you live in an urban area and go out on foot every day to get coffee, groceries, etc., but if you're a typical WFH software engineer living in the suburbs, you're probably going to have to spend 45 min to an hour every day walking for exercise to…

When I took a full remote position late last year, I also invested in a cheap treadmill for my home office, plus a laptop attachment. I get on it first thing every day, and do my normal inbox processing, generally at a pretty slow pace. Responding to slacks, emails, PRs is easy in this mode, no different than sitting at a desk. Lately I've added a 30-minute end of day shutdown walk on top of it. Review my todo list, check tomorrow's calendar, etc. Altogether, I average 2-3 miles per day.

I haven't been able to consistently operate on it for deeper work/code or meetings, but I don't know if I really need to.

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

#834

Post by brimble »

birksherty wrote: post #745
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…

> They are so adverse to exercise, that suggesting exercise seems offensive to them. They emphasize that it's entirely about diet. Disagree completely. Exercise does not lose weight. The amount of exercise one needs to lose the calorie gained from a burger is not possible to achieve on daily basis. Weight does not just come from air. It's all about what you eat. That's the science. Exercise helps to build muscle and…

I tried to lose some weight with strict calorie counting once. ~1400/day.

No loss in about 60 days, with zero cheating. I also started doing a lot of cardio at the same time (bike riding, running). No help there, either.

Gained a ton of fat fast when I stopped and went back to eating normally (for me).

Yeah, I'll stick to weight lifting. Dieting (past a certain point, anyway) fucks up my metabolism.

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

#837

Post by thepasswordis »

Just do keto.

There are tons of people who call the metabolic state of being in nutritional ketosis a "fad", but those people are wrong, or don't understand what a "keto" diet is.

A lot of times these people will want you to adhere to some complex, confusing, and ultimately prone to failure diet.

Carbs are very nutritionally dense. If you remove them from your diet you will probably lose weight.

Is it really that easy? Yes.

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

#839

Post by JesseMReeves »

You probably have a food addiction. This does not only materialize in eating, but also in thoughts about food or inventing ways to not eat. Thinking about food is very primal and you can easily slip into a different kind of food addiction (other kinds of eating disorders) if you are not cautious.

Your plan needs to be simple and reduce the mental capacity used up by thoughts about food.

Detailed calory tracking is counterproductive as the logging makes you think about food all the time.

Example low-mental capacity plan: Only eat one moderate meal per day (and one little other thing if you really get too hungry) for a set number of weeks, maybe 6. Don’t look at the scale more than once per week. Have one cheat day per week. Recover, then repeat.

Less difficult example: Fast for one or two days per week. Track calories with a method requiring low mental capacity all other days. (Noteworthy trivia: Obama fasted every Sunday.)

Use gamification like:

* AppleWatch with CaliCalo (you get exp for every calory saved) plus some simple fast way to enter calories into AppleHealth on your wrist

* Fitness games like RingFit Adventure, Fitness boxing (sports don’t help you loose weight substantially but do improve health)

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

#840

Post by elviejo »

Merad wrote: post #738
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…

> walking just ~8k steps per day You kind of gloss over this, but 8k steps is around 3 miles of walking for the average person. You might be able to get that "naturally" if you live in an urban area and go out on foot every day to get coffee, groceries, etc., but if you're a typical WFH software engineer living in the suburbs, you're probably going to have to spend 45 min to an hour every day walking for exercise to…

To hit that number I enrolled in a small coworking space that is 20 minutes away from my house... It's 2500 steps from home... So just going and getting back from the office gives me 5,000 steps...
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